★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
Christianity Revelation, in as far so far as it is comes under the nature of a perfect a Law, that
is contains specific precepts along with
a Sanction, can never be consider'd as intending
to regulate men's conduct actions in other respects
than those in which they are left
free by the State. For [Present] Happiness in this
life being one of it's two ends, & being the evidence that of the
other of them (namely future happiness) in another life being so, is such
& Present Happiness being no otherwise attainable maintainable
than by the subordination of private
interests (or the interests of this or that individual)
to public interest, (or the interests of the
majority,) of which interest the State, i.e.
(the rulers for the time being) must be the
Judge — to enjoin a man to draw from it
any role of conduct counter to that which
the state prescribes, would be have been to counteract
its own ends purposes. Accordingly the divine Author of our
Religion instead of launching into distinctions
[as his successors have done] between what is Cæsar's
and what not his in this
Moses, who with all
the assistance he
had from
found so much difficulty
in keeping
the restive people
he governed in tolerable
subjection
Kept to what would have been the
surprize of Moses, to
have been told that so
many ages after
his death many in
a great people nation in
which a small remnant
of that people
were glad to find
a shelter, many of
his ordinances would
be received with an
obedience of which
he never saw one
[+] v. Titulum hug. pag.
Blackstone's opinion.
which offers
itself as a firebrand
to the hands of
fanaticism.
restricted precept "render unto Cæsar the things
which are Cæsar's; || || i.e. which are in
Cæsar's department which may with very little
difficulty or danger be interpreted to extend to
every thing that can be Cæsar (acting with the towards the
end above supposed) case chooses to be his; leaving
always at any rate then enough to be God's, which Cæsar can
never reach.
...."In which",
says our father of
our church, "every
thing is extraordinary
&c.
We need not be
afraid: if making
a thing to be Cæsar's
was preventing it to
from being God's,
there would always
be enough for
God in of what Cæsar
can never
reach.
Note
In truth nothing can be more absurd nothing than to
derive rules to controul the political conduct
of a State from a System in which no thought
of . . . . . . . . . .
if any were discover'd. + + v. to this effect
1. Div. Leg. No precepts adapted
to the Station of political command. A
deep silence concerning a situation of things
even then in a manner near at hand in
which that Religion was to be seated in the
throne.
It would have been stranged, if men thus abandoned
to their own lights] of their own intelligence had had their hands
tied behind them to prevent their finding out investigating
own
If we were to judge draw
the same inference
from those passages
of the New Testament
as from a
common history;
we should say
XXXVII §
To shew the mischief that may must arise from so dangerous
a position, if received, I shall need produce but 2 instances examples [+]
[+] Murderer not to hang
to be hung upon a True x Murderer in Chains.
Permission is sufficient
without command: injunction the
1st is sufficient to call
first the activity of a
good Citizen: the
of the 2d is to a
of .
a buckles on the arm
of a good citizen — the
2d is a buck firebrand in the
hand of a fanatic.
Of the commandments given to the Jew, this is one another: remember
that .....(on the Sabbath day) thou shalt do no manner
of work: thou — nor thy man servant .... nor thy
Horse — — — Among the Laws given to this the people country 'Every
licensed Hackney-Coachman, or his Driver, who shall drive
with any Hackney Coach on the Lord's Day, shall be liable
to do the like work — — — as such Coachman or his Driver,
is compellable to do on any other day of the week. + + 7 G.3. 44 §18 [-cism]
Now according to the above maxim, upon the passing of either of
these two Laws, if (2 of the Old Testament) the the Law given to the Jews the the 1 (appellation
of God's be given) all England should have been
up in arms; nor does is the innocence of it render'd clear from
no such events having actually happened consequences have shown themselves in the event that it is
not on every occasion, nor from any spark that the natural stock of fanaticism
in the people will catch fire: yet the example of
the Jew Bill, in which this cause more than any political consideration
were the means of running down proves, that even
in this nation, [that malady] the all danger of .... from that quarter is not absolutely at an end.
Nothing therefore can is capable of introduce more confusion in mans the
reasonings of men of this age, nor of leading them more wider
astray from the point of perfection in their Laws, than
for the division of questions of a political nature, to
resort to a dispensation, in which (according to a celebr distinguished
Divine father of the our Church, of a very now living different discretion from the
Commentator's) as we well know very well that every thing was extraordinary,
nor fit to be drawn into example, any more
than into imitation".
---page break---
INTROD. Law Divine — No Separate Rule of [BR][ ] Action — Practical ill-consequences.
|
Identifier: | JB/063/039/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 63.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
063 |
law in general |
||
|
039 |
introd. law divine - no separate rule of action - practical ill-consequences |
||
|
002 |
introduction - false division |
||
|
text sheet |
1 |
||
|
recto |
|||
|
jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::[...?]]] |
||
|
20228 |
|||